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One of the things I treasure most as a Stoke City fan is the bond which exists between players and supporters. When that’s strong, it’s a sign things are either going well or that there’s genuine hope and belief in the team.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much evidence of any special bond at the weekend as players and fans clearly had their differences during the 2-0 victory over bottom-of-the-table Ipswich.

The exasperation and frustration expressed from the stands, on several occasions, was reflected back towards fans by our players on more than one occasion.

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I think Simon Lowe articulated much of the frustration in his excellent column this week, and I’d point people in that direction if they haven’t already seen it. He made many good points there that may otherwise have appeared here.

In a nutshell, on top of the mounting frustration which has been gathering for much of this season, there’s also the question of the past two seasons and the effect that’s had on Stoke fans.

Sticking purely with this season for now, many supporters don’t much care for the style of football we’re playing, while the players are naturally fed-up of having people on their backs when they’re doing what they’ve been told to do by the manager and his staff.

The very best of Martin Smith

It was obviously even harder for the players to accept the grief they were getting when we’re actually winning the game and when we’re on the sort of run which would normally have the fans sitting up and starting to believe.

Steadily and quietly we’ve put together a run of five wins, six draws and just one defeat from our last 12 games, and it’s put us within six points of the play-off places.

If we were to win at Villa Park on Saturday - and let’s believe that we can - then we’d actually go above Aston Villa in the table and possibly as high as eighth.

But the Championship is so tight that if we were to lose and the four teams below us - all of whom are playing at home- were to win then we could drop to 14th.

Gary Rowett walks down the sidelines before Stoke City take on Ipswich. (Image: Leanne Bagnall)

This should be a time when we’re beginning to get excited by the prospect of such a big game on Saturday and the possibility we could take a major step towards winning promotion, but the buzz isn’t there at the moment.

Not only has there been a fracturing of the bond between players and the supporters, but fans are also regularly expressing their exasperation with each other.

After Saturday there were Stokies commenting on how uninspiring the game had been (and I’ll hold my hand up and count myself among that number), while others couldn’t believe there was any negativity at all after a 2-0 win, a climb up the table and the continuation of our recent run of improved results.

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Having also been involved in delivering some on-the-spot “supporter feedback” during the game on Saturday, Rowett must also be wondering if he’s ever going to win over fans who still don’t appear to have warmed to his brand of football, despite that run of one defeat in a dozen games.

As evidenced by the fact we have yet to score more than two goals in any game this season (or in any single game since December 23 last year - although we can hardly blame Rowett for what happened before he took over) we’re not a side which goes for the “all out attack” approach.

Until recently, we actually held the record of averaging the fewest on-target attempts per game in the Championship, and on Saturday we scored from our only two on-target attempts in the entire game. It only matters that we won, of course, but it’s not exciting football at times and supporters aren’t inspired by it.

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All Rowett is doing is trying to get the team higher up the table, and that’s exactly what he should carry on doing.

And if he gets the team into the play-offs, then he can be sure that the complaints and frustration will take care of themselves and the howls of frustration will drift quietly away.

But there’s a lot of work to be done before that happens, and everything depends upon this current run continuing.

I do hope it happens though because matchdays have not been a particularly enjoyable experience for much of this season, and the absent fans won’t return in the numbers the club needs until they see tangible evidence of improvement.